For many years, agricultural equipment, sometimes denoted herein by the abbreviation AE, and the individual agricultural machines of such agricultural equipment, have been operated under control of an operator thereof to perform various operations or actions, including, among other things, the harvesting, transfer, and transport of crops. The performance by such agricultural equipment of the various actions has sometimes been based upon various data relating, among other things, to the individual machine being operated as well as to crop type, weather conditions, topographical conditions, and the position of the individual machine in the field from which the crop is being harvested or relative to other agricultural equipment. In addition, the status of such agricultural equipment or features or components thereof, such as, for example, the fill status of a grain bin of a combine harvester and the position of the combine harvester in a field being harvested, and the load status of a crop transport vehicle, such as a grain cart, and its position, especially relative to combine harvesters in a field, has been considered pertinent information, which, when it can be properly shared amongst the relevant agricultural equipment, has been beneficial in the interplay and interaction of such relevant agricultural equipment as they perform a particular agricultural operation, such as the harvesting of a crop in a field and the transfer of the harvested crop to a crop transport vehicle.
In part, to facilitate the coordination of activities between and among various individual pieces or machines of agricultural equipment, communications systems and devices of various types and constructions have been developed and installed on or in the individual agricultural machines so as to allow communications therebetween by the operators thereof and, in more recent years, even the communication or exchange of various data between two individual agricultural machines, typically by RF wireless communications.
In earlier systems, voice communications allowed the operator of a first individual agricultural machine to establish a communications link with and to orally communicate information, including machine location and operating information and status, to the operator of a second agricultural machine, including a different type of agricultural machine, thereby allowing the operator of the second agricultural machine to make adjustments in the operation of his or her individual machine as conditions might warrant. When the communications were between different types of agricultural machines, such as between a combine harvester and a crop transport vehicle, such communication was often intended to permit the navigation of the second agricultural machine to join or intercept the first agricultural machine, such as for the transfer of a harvested crop from the first to the second agricultural machine.
More recently, in some instances and with some communications systems, the machine operator of a combine harvester has been able to establish a communications link with and to provide data in an electronic form to a different operator or to the control system associated with the different agricultural machine, such as a crop transport vehicle, in order to permit coordination of crop transfer to the crop transport vehicle and, in some cases, to even remotely exercise some control over such crop transport vehicle, such as steerage of the crop transport vehicle to meet the combine harvester at the combine harvester's position in a field, and the scheduling of the time and location for the combine harvester and the crop transport vehicle to meet.
In other instances and with other systems, the machine operator of a crop transport vehicle, such as a grain cart, has been able to receive on individual bases electronic data from one or more combine harvesters to permit the control system associated with the crop transport vehicle to coordinate the scheduling of positionings of the crop transport vehicle relative to the crop harvesters and the automated steerage of the crop transport vehicle to meet the combine harvesters at the combine harvesters' positions in a field so that coordinated transfers of the harvested crop from the combine harvesters to the crop transport vehicle can be effected.
For the most part, the electronic data so provided or received has related to the location and relative positionings of the combine harvesters and transport vehicles, with, in some instances, an operator of the combine harvester or the crop transport vehicle having the further ability to act as a master and to remotely control to some extent the navigation and/or steerage of others of the agricultural vehicles as slave vehicles in order to effect interceptions therebetween for the transfer of harvested crop from the combine harvesters to the transport vehicles.
In some situations, the control system of a slave vehicle has been so designed that, instead of, or in addition to, facilitating the steerage or navigation of the slave vehicle to effect an intercept with a master vehicle, the slave vehicle is controlled to follow, or to remain at a relatively fixed distance from, the master vehicle, based upon a continuing communication of the positioning and location information between or regarding the master and slave vehicles.
For the most part, when such systems have been employed, the operator of the harvester has remained responsible for manually commencing the actual unloading operation once the harvester and transport are properly positioned for unloading and for then monitoring and manually controlling the unloading. In some instances, certain sensors and monitors of various types have been operable to detect conditions that might be considered problemsome for continued unloading and to provide indications to the operator so that appropriate actions could then be taken by such operator, such as a re-positioning of the discharge arm of the harvester to alter the angle of extension of the discharge arm from the harvester or a re-orientation of the discharge spout at the end of the discharge arm to alter the discharge flow path from the discharge arm, or even discontinuation of the unloading operation. With certain systems, some minor adjustments to the positioning of the discharge arm or re-orientation of the discharge spout, within certain limits, may even have been effectable without operator intervention, but, for the most part, close and continuing operator attention and intervention, especially in the event of undesirable conditions and to effect commencement and termination of unloading operations, has remained a necessity. Such necessity for close and continuing operator attention poses difficulties for an operator when unloading is occurring on-the-go since the operator may also be attempting to monitor and control other events at such time, including the continuing harvesting operation.
In addition, with many of such systems it has remained difficult to achieve a desired uniform, or even, fill level of the crop transport regardless of whether the transfer or grain unloading operation has been manually or automatically controlled, due in part to the sizes of the grain holding receptacles of the transport vehicles and to the nature of fill as grain is directed into the grain holding receptacle from the spout of a discharge arm associated with the transferor-type vehicle. In general, the grain tends to pile up below the discharge spout and to assume, to some extent, the shape of a mound, with a higher grain elevation and concentration below the discharge spout and lower elevations and concentrations in radial directions therefrom, resulting in underutilization of the storage capacities of the transferor-type vehicles.
To try to address such problem and to achieve a more uniform fill of grain holding receptacles, some unloading systems have been designed to permit or to control some automated movement of the discharge arm or the discharge spout at the end thereof during the course of an unload operation, while the positions of the transferor-type and transferee-type vehicle relative to one another remain fixed. Dependent upon the system, such movement could include resettings of the angle at which the discharge arm extends from the transferor-type vehicle towards the transferee-type vehicle and/or angular re-orientations of the discharge spout during the course of the unload operation, the intent of which would be to alter the discharge flow path during the course of the unload operation to thereby effect a less concentrated area of grain discharge from the spout.
While such systems have resulted in some improvements in achieving a more uniform fill of some grain holding receptacles, they have required relatively complex subsystems for automatedly effecting the desired movements of the discharge arm and discharge spout thereof relative to the transferor-type vehicle, and, so also, the transferee-type vehicle, and for determining times for such movements as well as for ensuring that the movements will not result in crop spillage and loss during the unload operation. The integration of such subsystems of both a transferor-type and transferee-type vehicle into a unified grain transfer control system has been challenging, especially due to the complexity of such a system. In addition, problems with effecting an even fill have remained, especially when the crop transports have been grain carts of a larger size, with relatively large, generally rectangular (when viewed from above), grain holding receptacles, such as may be found in the Kinze 1050 and J&M 1325 carts, especially inasmuch as there are limits, while the positions of the transferor-type and transferee-type vehicle relative to one another remain fixed, as to the amount of movement and/or re-orientation that can be realized with the discharge arm and the discharge spout thereof before the discharge flow path would be directed to fall outside of the grain holding receptacle.
Consequently, users of agricultural equipment have continued to seek simple and reliable systems and methods for coordinating unloading operations between a harvester and a grain transport vehicle and for communicating and exchanging information therebetween during unloading operations, and for doing so in such a way and in such an environment that grain transfer operations can be automatedly effected so as to result in a more complete and uniform fill and distribution in the grain holding receptacles of the grain transport vehicles, with minimal operator attention and continuing involvement required once an unloading operation has been initiated.